Religion has been present in the day-to-day life of the human being since several thousand years before the birth of civilizations. The different forms of religiosity are based on rituals and symbols, and these elements are already present at the time of the caves, and even in the Neanderthals.

However, despite the fact that for millennia we have lived in more or less the same way, in recent decades our species has been shaken by a series of technological and cultural revolutions that have transformed the whole of society. And, as the great material changes also generate changes in ideas, religiosity has been transformed. In fact, a recent study indicates that something as common as the use of Internet is related to a lesser belief in religion .

More Internet Enthusiasm, Less Religious Sentiment

Religiosity is something very complex, and throughout the different human societies there are great differences not only in terms of the majority religions, but also in the degree of religiosity. While decades ago atheism and agnosticism were somewhat marginal, today they are increasingly common in Western societies, especially in those countries considered “first world” where there is a strong welfare state and extreme poverty is relatively small.

However, beyond the place where you live and the social class you belong to, there are other factors related to believing more or less in a religion, and it seems that the use of the Internet is one of them.
Paul K. McLure, the study’s author, based the research on data from a national survey in the United States, the Baylor Religion Survey, which collected information from about 1,700 adults living in the United States. Among the items in this questionnaire, included questions on the level of religiousness and faith, and regular (or non-regular) use of the Internet .

Although the use of this virtual tool was associated with less contact with religion, this link had nuances. For example, it had nothing to do with the frequency of participation in specific religious activities, such as weddings or baptisms, but rather with the intensity of religious beliefs (or lack thereof).

Moreover, those who spent more hours connected to the network of networks were less likely to hold that one religion was true and the rest were not. In other words, they tended to treat all religions more equally, as if they were the same. Curiously, the same was not true of the time spent watching television .

What is this about?

It should be noted that this research has found correlations, and not a necessarily cause-effect relationship . It may be that surfing more on the Internet reduces the intensity of religiousness, but it may also be that less religious people surf more (despite the fact that the study isolated the influence of social class, race, educational level, political ideology and other important elements). However, McLure believes that there is reason to believe that the Internet has had an impact on the way we position ourselves in relation to religion.

Tendency to isolate

Frequent use of the Internet can lead to a certain isolation and to adopting a lifestyle away from others at times when one is not working. Since religion is almost always based on shared rituals, this can affect beliefs: not habitually exposing oneself to these customs in the family or in the community weakens the importance that religiosity has for a person.

Religion has been present in the day-to-day life of the human being since several thousand years before the birth of civilizations. The different forms of religiosity are based on rituals and symbols, and these elements are already present at the time of the caves, and even in the Neanderthals.

However, despite the fact that for millennia we have lived in more or less the same way, in recent decades our species has been shaken by a series of technological and cultural revolutions that have transformed the whole of society.
And, as the great material changes also generate changes in ideas, religiosity has been transformed. In fact, a recent study indicates that something as common as the use of Internet is related to a lesser belief in religion .

More Internet Enthusiasm, Less Religious Sentiment

Religiosity is something very complex, and throughout the different human societies there are great differences not only in terms of the majority religions, but also in the degree of religiosity. While decades ago atheism and agnosticism were somewhat marginal, today they are increasingly common in Western societies, especially in those countries considered “first world” where there is a strong welfare state and extreme poverty is relatively small.

However, beyond the place where you live and the social class you belong to, there are other factors related to believing more or less in a religion, and it seems that the use of the Internet is one of them.
Paul K. McLure, the study’s author, based the research on data from a national survey in the United States, the Baylor Religion Survey, which collected information from about 1,700 adults living in the United States. Among the items in this questionnaire, included questions on the level of religiousness and faith, and regular (or non-regular) use of the Internet .